


Release

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Integrated Worlds [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Psii as the Helmsman, Self-Hatred, aftermath of being a ship, hi why is HIC not a common character tag, mild body horror, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:10:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15138845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: A little bit more explanation on why Alternia made peace with Earth instead of...well, making a decent attempt to kill as many humans as possible. (Hint: Psii had a lot to do with it.) Also a look at what happens when you remove a helmsman from his ship.(Hint: it's not good.)





	1. Chapter 1

You are intimately connected with every square centimeter of your ship, your nerves constantly firing with the sensory input that your mind still can't process, even after...however many sweeps you've been here. It's almost laughable, because you were always led to believe that, given enough pain sustained for a long enough time, you would lose the ability to feel it. That everything would fade into a constant ache, something that you could live with.

No. 

It's been sweeps, in the space between the stars, and every moment of your existence is _still_ pure, unmitigated agony. If pain could kill, you would have been dead long ago. 

Fuck, that thought sends a spike of hope through your body, sparking a brief power surge that the wires immediately drain off and divert to storage. It hurts, of course; excess power being drained away is perhaps the third most painful part of being a helmsman. Second is shifting in or out of hyperspace; that process is wrenchingly painful, enough so that the audio pickups in the helmsblock tend to pick up your broken cries almost every time. First is when the ship needs power and _forces_ you to produce it, stimulating your psionics with sharp little shocks directly into the pain centers of your brain, triggering your automatic defensive reflexes and taking what it requires from you by force. 

Not that it hurts any less when the ship's not trying to rape more out of you. It _always_ hurts, you're always in pain, there is no hope of escape, not really, not as long as Her Imperial Condescension requires a flagship. You _are_ her flagship. 

You're doing something that might cause her to decide that she doesn't need you as her flagship, though. 

A human actually was the one who came up with the plan, you've been told. _Crushing Victory_ was the ship who passed it along to you—the helmsman was told of it by their technician on one of the oh-so-rare occasions when they were mostly disconnected, allowed to be aware of their body instead of being consumed by the sensory knowledge of the ship. You could feel the echo of the pain of that experience in their thoughts as they transmitted the plan to you—and even worse, you felt their desire to be allowed to have the experience again. 

You're horrified at their willingness to undergo the torture of feeling the wires shifting under their skin again, to have both the ship and their own flesh body trying to make all their pains known, to be torn in half between the two states of being. 

You understand that willingness completely. After all, if you were given the chance to talk to Signless or Darkleer again...

Well. 

You won't be given that chance. Ever. 

You're holding your position just the right side of the event horizon of a black hole, linked to six hundred and seventy four other ships—six hundred seventy four other _helmsmen_ —holding them in place with the sheer force of your will. 

Which is considerable. About the only thing it can't do is kill you. Not directly. You've tried to think yourself to death, and all it does is give the ship more power. 

But you can hold the others in place, at least until you receive the signal. It'll be one of two things: either a message promising a peace treaty with Earth, with the humans, the aliens whose ships use propulsion systems that don't greet you with a scream of agony under the hailing frequency—or a message telling you that She intends to continue with her plan to fight. 

If it's the latter? 

You will release your mental hold on the others, and let them choose what they do. You know what you'll do, and suspect that most of the helmsman will follow your lead. 

A few hundred kilometers, and you'll be inside the event horizon. You'll die slowly, dragged inwards and crushed into a single point of unrecognizable metal and organic matter, and it will be several orders of magnitude less painful than how you exist now. 

Perhaps you should simply pour more power into the engines now. You shouldn't wait; it's already been—too long. Too long, since you transmitted the signal that you'd dragged the other ships into position, that the others back on Alternia needed to present their ultimatum. Too long. Too _long._

If She gives you a direct order to return, you're not sure you can resist. 

_Resistance's End,_ the only ship in the fleet that comes close to your size and power, sends you a transmission that they've just recieved. It's a surprisingly large file; too large for the encoded audio you expected. large enough to make you wonder if Her Imperial Condescension has ordered some of her underlings to craft a special file for you. Chucklevoodoos can be written into electronic formatting, after all. 

There's a small ship tucked up just under your lower hull; you apologize in advance and then slave yourself to them, trying and failing to brace yourself against the added agony of the input from their mind as well. This must be hurting them as it's hurting you, but you need to be able to pass the chucklevoodoos on to them, if that's what's really in the file. You need to stay lucid enough to give the suicide order, after all. 

(The desperate spike of hope you sense from the smaller ship at the thought that they might be about to die horribly is almost more painful than the added sensory input.) 

You push that all out of your mind, or try to, and open the file. 

It accesses your visual centers, letting you see that it's...definitely not from the Empress. You're fairly certain that your shock and longing ripples through the entire fleet at the sight of the dark-clad troll in the video; if you were capable of it, your eyes would already be as full as tears as his are. 

The camera is shaking, but you still focus completely on him, slowing your perception of the video so you can take in every second, study every millimeter of his red-stained face. He's been crying. Is still crying. But he's smiling as well, and you let the video speed snap back to normal just so you can see whether you'll live or die. 

...no. You won't live. This is about whether _others_ will live or die; you'll either die in the gravitational singularity, or you'll stay in the hell that you're in now. Your life was over the moment they dragged you to the helmsblock. 

" _—home, Psii, come home, empty space—you've done it, we've won—come home, the bitch gave in, she's going to_ decommission _you, Psii, do you understand? Come back to Alternia—_ " 

Signless starts sobbing then, Dis darting onscreen to wrap her arms around him, and the video goes blank for a moment before beginning to repeat. You let it keep playing, while you try to process what you've just seen. 

When you do? When you understand that you were _wrong,_ that you will in fact escape the space between the stars? 

You _scream._

You let your psionics pour out of you, giving willingly to the ship for the first time in what might as well be forever, and you slave yourself to all six hundred seventy four other helmsmen arrayed around you. You let them feel your pure blazing hope, your denial of the permanency of the horrible reality of _being_ the ship, and you make the shift to hyperspace. 

Even though you don't even attempt to force them all to follow, you feel their presence all around you as they do. 


	2. Chapter 2

"You will need to catch him," Darkleer says, very quietly. As if he's unsure what effect speaking to you will have, as if he thinks he should ask _her_ to pass on the message. When you don't move, he says, "Signless. He's drained; the fall might kill him." 

"Be a coddamn mercy, wouldn't it?" _she_ laughs. That more than anything gives you the willpower to move, to step up closer to the Helmsman and reach out to put your hands on his shoulders. "C'mon, fish, he's twice your size! Oughta call in somebody capable, before you fuck up and _ruin_ my generosity here." 

Instead of listening to her, you focus on the wetness under your palms. On how his eyes are open and don't see you, on how you can't detect the rise and fall of his breath even from this close. 

(Don't think of that. Don't think of how this might all be too late. Don't. Please. _Please._ ) 

Darkleer waits for you to get closer, then bows his head, moving aside slightly from the interface he's standing at. _She_ steps in, ducking her head just the slightest bit so her horns don't scrape against the ceiling, and enters a string of code in, jeweled claws tapping against the keys. 

The wires writhe like they're alive. Perhaps they are; you don't know much about the mechanics of starships. They jerk up, and at first they drag Psii along with them and he makes a choked wheezing sound and you think, you _know,_ that she's changed her mind, that of course you won't get him back, you'll never get him back, he's meant to die here in this helmsblock and all you've accomplished is the small mercy of letting him die in a moment rather than over the course of several lifetimes—

Then the wires retract. They pull out of him, not one by one but all at once, and more blood soaks your hands in the second that he's still suspended there, eyes wide and stunned but not shedding any sparks. 

Then he collapses, and you wrap your arms around him and break his fall. He _is_ breathing, you feel him panting weakly against your neck as you lower him gently to the stained metal floor. 

"Psii...oh, _Psii_..." 

Your oldest friend shudders, as you touch his face. You can't tell if it's in pain from the contact of your hand with the raw scarring there, or from the desperate desire for more contact. Either way, he twitches, trying to roll his head against your palm. 

"Psii," you whisper. His eyelids are sliding down, closing as he goes limp, and whether it's death or merely unconsciousness that's taking him you are unbearably, unspeakably grateful. "Welcome home." 

_She_ snickers, as you try to lift him off the floor. She doesn't help—you don't expect it, and you'd snarl if she tried—but as soon as you slide your arms under Psii's shoulders Darkleer is there, crooning worriedly in his chest as he takes the goldblood away from you. 

Darkleer lifts him like he's nothing, hurries out of the room and into the hallway. You go to follow, and a hand with long fuchsia talons falls onto your shoulder. 

You don't want to turn, if only because you know she'd love to kill you for the look of open fury on your face. You do it anyway, because she could rip your throat open right now for the disrespect of refusing to attend to her, and then who would be there for Psii when he wakes up? 

(When. Not if.) 

Her Imperial Condescension smiles down at you, a mouthful of fangs that were made to rip and tear gleaming. "You ain't finna keep him, lil' fish. You know that, right?" 

You know. You _know_. No one's sure he'll survive; helmsmen were never made to be taken from their ships, after all. 

"He'll be in the space between the glubbin' stars before the sweep's out." 

She looks...so gleeful. Knowing that she's really won even though you scored this victory on her. 

"So how does _that_ feel, lil' fish?" 

You dig your teeth into your tongue until your mouth fills with that color that's almost gotten you killed a hundred times in your short life, and you spit it up into her face. It shows perhaps more clearly than any other color would, splattered against her smooth grey skin; her glee turns to fury, she goes utterly stiff, and you bare your teeth at her in pure rage-fueled defiance. 

" _Fuck_ you," you tell her. 

Then you straighten your cape, run your fingers across the new gold stains like the badges of honor they are, and stalk out of the helmsblock in pursuit of Darkleer and the Psiionic.


	3. Chapter 3

Almost a full sweep, and Psii still wakes up screaming every time he manages to sleep. This is no exception, although the fact that _you_ don't wake up until his claws rake across your face is disappointing. 

"Psii—" No use; he's still asleep, even as he thrashes, tangling in the blankets, face twisted up in pain. You blink cobalt out of your eyes and sit up, careful to keep your weight on the mattress rather than on his chest as you kneel over him and pin his wrists down. 

The restraint draws another broken howl out of him, and you wince but you don't let go. Being held down, being immobilized, it's too close to how the wires kept him still, but he'll hurt himself if you let him—in fact, there's already his gold as well as your blue blood on his fingers. 

"Psii. Wake up. Come on, come back, Psii. Open your eyes. See where you are." 

At first it doesn't have any effect, but you keep talking, holding him down as he struggles against your grip and trying not to think about his pained cries. And eventually, he goes still under you, quieting down a little. 

Of course, as soon as his eyes open he starts sobbing again, which confuses you until you remember the drying blood on your face. Oh. 

"Please don't." Psii actually tries to pull away from you when you let go of his wrists, almost managing to slide off the mattress and onto the floor before you scoop him up and pull him up close to your chest. "It is barely anything, you know I'm alright—" 

You have to stop and intercept his hands as he tries to claw at his own face. Even as weak as he still is, you can feel the strength that his pure despairing determination to _damage_ himself gives him, enough that a lower-blooded troll might not be able to hold him. He has to know that you are strong enough to keep him from his goal, but Psii still struggled for a minute, jerking slightly as he automatically tries to access his psionics and force you to let him go. 

Nothing happens, of course. His powers are gone, now and perhaps forever. No one's sure. 

Eventually, he stops fighting you and goes limp, panting and shuddering against your chest. Once that happens, you release his wrists in favor of working your fingers through his tangled hair, letting the sides of your hands brush against his twin pairs of horns. Even though Psii's still making soft whimpering sounds in the back of his throat, the almost-pale attention you're giving him coaxes a rattling purr from his chest. 

It's something. It's more than you could manage at first. 

" _Darkleer,_ " he whispers against you, curling up tighter in your lap. "Why." 

"Why?" Oh, not this. Not this again. You hate the line of logic he's about to go down. (Not that you let your sorrow that he's going to argue it again show in your words. No, you keep your voice low and gentle, let him hear your care for him.) "That is not enough information for me to give you an answer, Psii." 

His hands find your shirt and twist in the fabric, tightly enough that you worry he'll hurt himself. "Why the fuck are you still here." 

"Because of you." 

"No. _Why_." 

"You are my matesprit." 

"I'm not the matesprit you _chose,_ I'm a—I'm a fucking ruined helmsman." Psii raises his head, moving like the effort involved is almost unbearable. Perhaps it is. "I'm broken, _nothing_ , I'm forcing you pale for me—" 

"You are not." 

"Shut up!" He bares his teeth at you for interrupting, tears making fresh trails down his face. "What do you call this? It's fucking pale, there's no way you can explain it away—" 

"You are not forcing me into anything, Psii—" 

"—you're here because I'd hurt Sign if he tried to shoosh me awake, because you're the only one who's strong enough to hold me—" 

"I am here because you need me, and because this is where I belong." At his side. With him. When he was the ship, you called in every favor you've ever been owed so that you could be sure of being assigned as one of his technicians. As much as you've been able, you've stayed with him. 

And again, he's begging you to leave, even as he clings to you to keep you here. "I'm ruining your _life_ ," he whispers, and his shoulders jerk as he starts sobbing again. 

"No." He's still looking up at you; you shift your hands on his head, cupping his face so you can wipe at the tears there with your thumbs. The scars are both smoother and rougher than unmarked skin, and Psii shivers as you touch them. "Shush." 

His breath catches at that, dichotic eyes shutting as he flinches in your grasp. "I've ruined your quadrants." 

"My quadrants are fine. Perfect." 

"No." 

"You are my red—" 

"I'm fucking it up, making you flip pale—" 

" _You are my red._ " If this edges into pale, what of it? Call it a mixture of Signless's quadrant-generous nature rubbing off on you, and of you responding to what your soulmate needs. "Always. Summoner and Signless, they are still my pale." 

Psii twitches; after a second you realize he's trying to shake his head. 

"Yes, they are." 

"Summoner won't come near me." 

"His abilities interact with the lack of yours, Psii. He doesn't want to hurt you." 

"He _should_." This time, you're too slow to catch his hands before he digs his nails into his forearms. 

"Psii—" 

At least he doesn't fight you when you reach down to make him stop. What he does instead—going limp against you, his head resting against your shoulder—is somehow worse than if he'd resisted, and what he mumbles to you makes you flinch like he'd struck you, even though this is far from the first time you've heard it from him. 

"...I wish she'd ordered me executed. Instead of—instead of this." 

You can't stop the unhappy chirp that forces its way out of you. Really, you don't even try. "I don't." 

"You'd be fine, you fucking idiot, you—you'd have another matesprit by now, you wouldn't be shooshing me and sending your grub to sleep at your kismesis's hive for fear I'd hurt them—"

"Psii, lovely one, _shh._ " He sobs as you call him that, both hands coming up to cover his scarred face as you kiss the top of his head, directly between his horns. "You'd never hurt Horrus and we both know it; he goes to Handmaid because she hasn't adopted one of her own yet, and it's easier for her to keep him at night than it is for me." 

"Because of _m-me_ —" 

"No. Shush. Shh." He doesn't, of course. Just buries his face in your chest and sobs, gold-tinted tears soaking into your shirt. "Psii." 

"No." 

"Yes. Psiionic." 

He whimpers, ducking his head down even further. 

"Psii, leaving you is not an option. I have followed you into the space between the stars, remember?" 

"Then send me there again!" That comes out perfectly clear as he snaps his head up, red and blue eyes meeting yours defiantly. He's never asked for this outright before. 

It makes your heart stutter in your chest, at the idea of doing what he suggests, because you _know_ this has nothing to do with letting him become a ship again. "Don't even say that." 

"No?" He tries to pull away from your arms, and you see something spark deep in his eyes when you refuse to let him. At least, you think you see something. "I should never have come back in the first place, I should never have woken up when you saved me, I should have killed myself when I figured out how _fucked_ up I am—" 

"And where would I be, you _stupid_ goldblood?" you ask him, unable to keep the tremor out of your voice this time as you wrap Psii up in your arms and hug him close, stifling whatever else he would have said. He squeaks, maybe in alarm or maybe in surprise, grabbing at your shirt. "You are my matesprit, the only one I want, you _idiot,_ I need you, I _need_ you..." 

Well. 

Now both of you are weeping. This isn't really how things are supposed to go. 

But Psii isn't fighting your embrace anymore, and he's not limp and all-but-lifeless either. He's curled up to your chest, crying and purring and clinging to you all at once, and you hold him and keep telling him how much you need him here with you for what must be a long time, because when you make yourself stop he's asleep again. 

Even in his sleep his purring is broken by whimpers and pained chirps, but at least there's some measure of peace on his face now. You croon back at him, and stroke his hair and horns gently, hoping that those small measures will let him stay calm and asleep for a little bit longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darkleer has ALL his quadrants filled good job Darkleer


	4. Chapter 4

You...

Get better. 

A little better. Slowly. You still can't sleep without having Darkleer with you, can't be around Handmaid or Mindfang or Summoner for more than a few hours without feeling like your head is going to shatter—the aftermath of long-term psionic drainage is a bitch, apparently—can't see that specific shade of fuchsia without starting to shake with fear. There's fewer places to see it now, though—Her Imperial Condescension is gone, not dead but removed from power and from Alternia, stranded on some planet even further away than Earth is. 

Half of you is furious that she wasn't killed. The other half—the half that holds the conditioning you were exposed to, from the base programming of your ship—hates that she's somewhere you can't reach her. She's your mistress, after all, she—

The impact of your fist against the table actually startles you; over at the counter, Darkleer jumps and turns toward you, eyebrows rising over his shades.

"Psii?" 

"It's nothing." You shrug, focusing on getting your fingers to uncurl. They don't seem to want to; not while you're this agitated. 

Okay, this is fucking annoying. 

You're still staring at your fist when the door opens. It's Dualscar, of course—neither he nor Mindfang seem to have any interest in actually _knocking_ on the goddamn door like a normal troll. Fuck. What's the point of—

Stop. 

Breathe. He's not the enemy. There isn't an enemy. The seadweller standing in front of you, looking down at you with a barely-contained grin, you don't need to fight him. And no, he wouldn't kill you if you _did_ fight him, so get that out of your head. 

"Dualscar," you say, after a moment of trying to get your goddamn emotions under control again. (It's not a particularly productive moment; you're still irrationally angry.) "What brings you here today?" 

The violet rolls his eyes, keeping one hand pressed against his chest—no, against the suspiciously squirming bulge in his shirt—and pulling out the other chair with the other, sitting down facing you. "I thought it was obvious." 

"Humor the fucked-up helmsman." You know that Darkleer just winced, but you keep your eyes on Dualscar instead. "What've you got?" 

"Something for you." He really does grin now, like he's unspeakably proud of himself, shifting whatever he's got in his shirt and wincing as it squeaks and growls at him. He's obviously _trying_ to extricate it, but it doesn't seem to like that idea. After a moment of watching him struggle, you lean over and smack his hands away, sliding your own hands up under his white shirt and getting ahold of the thing tucked between the cloth and his skin.

(Your matesprit makes a choking sound that you suspect is an attempt to not laugh. You elect to ignore it.) 

The little creature finally gives up its grip on Dualscar's skin and shirt, and tumbles down into your hands. For a moment, you try to catch it with your psionics, forgetting that they're gone, and it _almost_ slips out of your grip, onto the hard floor. 

Even as you chirp in alarm, you manage to catch it, though. 

It's—

_Oh._

The grub blinks up at you with eyes so very like your own, squeaking inquisitively as you instinctively cradle it up to your chest, minimizing the likelihood of it falling again. The squeaks become a tiny purr as you rub one finger across the top of its head, feeling for the shape of horns in that tangled mess of hair. 

You find one, then another on the same side. Bifurcation, one of the indicators of a strong psionic; this little one has both the horns and the heterochromia. They could be as strong or stronger than you were, once they grow up.

For a moment, your heart sinks at the knowledge of what they're destined for. 

Then you remember that psionics aren't hooked so deeply into the ships anymore but serve as navigators rather than power sources, and you almost sob in relief. 

Dualscar is still watching you when you look up at him, that proud grin on his face. "You look like you just stole someone's sweetened grubloaf and got away with it," you inform him. 

"I gave _you_ a sweet grubloaf, shut up." The violet chuckles, leaning over to pet the aforementioned grubloaf and earning himself a pleased chirr for his troubles. "Assuming you want it, of course." 

"I—" Fuck, do you want this little one. But it's not just your choice; Darkleer's feelings on the matter have to be taken into consideration, he has a grub not much older than this one, he might not want the added distraction of a goldblood grub as well as Horuss— 

"Give him the paperwork, Orphaner," Darkleer says from behind you. He sounds mildly amused at your hesitation, like he knows exactly what you're thinking and would like to inform you that it's complete bullshit. 

"I'm off-duty," Dualscar complains, already digging in a pocket for the sheets of paper he lays on the table in front of you. "Don't call me an Orphaner when I'm not working, come on." 

"You've brought us a grub; you're still on duty—here, Psii, let me have them." Darkleer deftly removes the grub from your lap before they can bite down on the pen Dualscar's just handed you. The grub instantly screeches, and you can't help but feel a flash of affection for them.

The violet has the decency to look slightly abashed. Only slightly. "Technically they're not an orphan. Just an unadopted wriggler from the Broodmother's caverns; Rosa actually was the one who picked them out for you—" 

"Fuck," you mutter, staring at where you just finished signing your name. Guilt hits you like a subjugglator's club, dark and crushing; what are you even doing? If the grub had been orphaned that's one thing; wrigglers with dead lusuii need to be placed quickly, given to someone who can give them the care and affection they're used to, but a grub who hasn't even been adopted yet? 

They can do so much better than you. Literally anyone would be better than you. You should—

Darkleer growls, huffs, and sets the grub on the table in front of you, breaking your train of thought. The little one stretches up on its lower two sets of legs, reaching up for you with its first pair and chittering at you to try to get your attention. 

It definitely has it. 

You smile at the grub and lean your head down until it can rest its legs on your chin, nosing gently at your face and chirping the whole time. What a good grub...okay, maybe you were wrong. Maybe you are the best person for it to be with. It already likes you, after all. Right? 

Darkleer pats your head, very gently. "Better?" he asks. 

"...better." Stars and space, he knows what you need before _you_ do. Without pulling back from the grub's attentions, you slide the completed paperwork across the table to Dualscar. "Thank you." 

"Hey. It's what you needed." 

As the grub drops to all six legs and tries to crawl off the edge of the table into your lap, you have to wholeheartedly agree with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is. Mituna.


End file.
